Wednesday, March 24, 2010

While New Edition may be considered the first Boy Band, the template for the stereotypical Boy Bands to follow would be based on the New Kids on the Block. New Edition was sugary pop sweetness, but the New Kids on the Block were a young girl sensation.

They image was plastered all over teen magazines, Trapper Keepers, lunch boxes, T-Shirts, bed sheets, buttons, shoes, shoes laces, birthday cakes, tooth brushes, underwear, and just about anything you can put an image on. They were the band that every girl and some boys in second to seventh grade loved. You weren't cool if you didn't go to the NKOTB show when they came to your local civic center.

This video is from the height of their popularity as you can tell from all the screaming girls. They had already shot to the top with their first super single You Got It (The Right Stuff). Although it was just called The Right Stuff on the album, they changed the single because Vanessa Williams had a hit earlier that year with the same name.

The video and the song are emblematic of the cheesiness and narcissism of the Boy Band. Synchronized dance moves and thousands of girls screaming and begging just to closer to their favorite member. Donnie was the bad boy, Joey was the baby face, Jordan was the pretty boy, Danny was the ugly one, and Jonathan was the gay one.